Retribution (#3)

by M. M. Mayle

  Sodden, glowering, he passes two of the kitchen staff on his way to the first floor, where he doesn’t stop to see who’s in the winter parlor that’s leaking food smells and the hushed talk of several voices. He’s nearly made a clean getaway when his mother’s voice stands out from the rest. He can’t very well ignore her; it’s his name she’s calling from the doorway to the parlor and he can’t be more than six feet from that doorway when she again shrills his name. He stops, turns, shakes his head, displays empty palms, which must send enough of a message because she withdraws without another word.

  Laurel intercepts him on the second floor. She simply materializes; she may have followed him, she may have emerged from one of the bedrooms; he can’t say, actually. And he can no more speak his anguish to her than he could to his mother.

  Like his mother, she accepts his impediment and recognizes the reason behind it. As she moves along beside him she neither suggests that he get out of his wet clothes nor reminds that he hasn’t had a real meal since lunch. She doesn’t offer any of the mindless platitudinous shit that spewed from professionals and volunteers alike when the search was called off because of the freakish damn weather. And she doesn’t question what he plans to do there when he enters his office without turning on the lights.

  For the longest time she stands nearby as he peers through rain-pebbled windows, strains to see that one moving firefly of light that could signal the difference between dread and hope. He might as well watch for faerie lights—for Tinkerbelle to wink by and lead the way to relief and redemption.

  “Redemption? What’s redemption got to do with it? Where’s that coming from?” he says in a voice gone so weak and hoarse from calling for Anthony that he doesn’t realize he’s spoken aloud.

  “Sorry?” Laurel says, closing the gap between them. “I didn’t catch that.”

  He shakes his head rather than speak again. She doesn’t say anything either. Not right away. But when she does speak, it’s without any indication she’s monitoring for signs that he’s turning inward rather than risk confronting the drained and lifeless body of his firstborn. She speaks only of practicalities, advises that Amanda is attempting to account for those caught in the open when the storm broke in full fury, and that Sam Earle is working towards restoring the lost power with emergency generators.

  “Oh, and they’re telling us to stay away from the windows because of all the flying debris,” she says matter-of-factly and abandons him to his own devices.

  But why wouldn’t she? Why shouldn’t she? In only six and a half short months he’s exposed her to grief and menace on an unprecedented scale and taken from her far more than was given. Why would she want to hold his hand through this? Why shouldn’t she walk away from further sacrifice? Who would blame her if she kept on walking without as much as a backwards glance?

  He remains close to the windows as though inviting a direct hit by a wind-driven projectile. When that doesn’t happen, he drops down to the floor at windowsill level and reviles every aspect of the life that brought him to this sorry state of affairs. He loathes every element of rock stardom, regrets every ill-considered decision, every thoughtless action, every action not taken—all the fuckwitted behavior that characterized his younger days—till a chill takes him that’s unrelated to his wet clothing. He swipes at the damp on his face that’s unrelated to his dripping hair and folds into a fetal position to ward off an onslaught unrelated to the storm outside.

  — FIFTY-SEVEN —

  Midnight, October 16, 1987

  The disorganized searchers close rank as they near the windbreak afforded by the big house. Some are even able to partway standup and again flaunt the fancy jackets labeling them official security and the like. But no matter what they call themselves, they’re still jackassed-fools for failing to see what’s right under their noses.

  But maybe not for long. Hoop bares his teeth in scorn—in the expression that comes natural ever since the wound to his chin pulled his mouth out of whack—and changes course before one of those fools accidentally stumbles onto him and the boy. The course change requires exposure to the worst of the wind and rain, forces him and the boy flat to the ground like they’re getting ready to squeeze under a fence instead of worm their way into a house.

  The sideways slant of the rain makes it hard to see more than a few inches ahead. And those inches don’t exactly stand out in the poor light coming from the windows on this darker side of the mansion house. The same senses depended on earlier tell him he and the boy are alone now, that everyone else has scrambled for shelter.

  Actual contact with the house—bumping his head against a stone wall—makes him feel like he’s counting coup and beefs up the boldness that got him this far. In the gravel strip bordering the walls of the house, he and the tethered boy wriggle along till they reach a window low enough to climb through.

  Hoop struggles to his knees, plasters his upper body against the stonework and readies to break the window with the kid’s flashlight. But before he can land the blow the kid rears up, throws his whole self between swung flashlight and window, and nearly gets clobbered for the effort.

  “No! No, you can’t do that!” the kid yelps loud enough to be heard over the wind and rain. He puts up a spunky fight all the while spouting a steady stream of objection in a high-pitched stutter.

  “Whaddya mean no?” Hoop shakes him off and gives the neck tether a sharp yank. “Yer home now and we’re goin’ inside.”

  “We had a deal! You said! When you untied my feet you said I was supposed to show you how to sneak in. If you break that window an alarm’ll sound and everyone’ll come running and you’ll cut my head off.”

  “No they won’t, they’ll just think a flying tree limb broke it.”

  “They will not! Not when they don’t see a tree limb anywhere about when they come looking.”

  “Then how am I supposed to sneak in?”

  “I know a way.”

  Sticking to the gravel strip again, Hoop gives the boy the lead. They edge along for what seems like a city block without coming to anything that looks like a secret way into the house. Now who’s going back on the deal? Hoop gives the boy’s tether a sharp yank and devotes some thought to making good on the boy’s predictions—to going it alone from here with no nevermind to how many alarms might sound.

  But that thought gives way at a turning point where they come up against a gate similar to the pair on Wheelwright Road. Only this one’s smaller. There’s some relief from the wind on this side of the house. There’s even an archway—one of many—to crouch under while the kid explains that sneaking into the house calls for climbing over the spiked iron gate and then up a stairs that leads to the roof.

  “Yer talkin’ about an outside stairs . . . like a fire escape, right?” Hoop says, already skeptical of the scheme, recalling the openwork metal stairs at the New Jersey motel that gave him the heebie-jeebies, drunk or sober.

  “Yeh, I guess. And the thing on the roof we’re gonna slip through is a raised skylight I call Snow White’s glass coffin ’cause that’s what it looks like. But first we have to get into the unicorn garden and I know just how. I’ve practiced a million times without gettin’ caught.”

  Only one window looks onto the area behind the iron fence and it’s not shedding much light. Without the kid to point out handholds and footholds where bars join stonework, and show how best to double over the spikes at the top, Hoop might be swinging the flashlight at the nearest pane of glass.

  Inside the fence, they lose their footing to the funneling of wind and rain trapped by the three solid walls of the unicorn garden. The going is twice as hard as it was when Hoop thought it couldn’t get harder. If there are horned animals in here—even fierce ones—that would be the least of their troubles.

  Through swirling rain, he gets a blurred view of some queer kind of lawn ornament, a huge big framework of rings shot through with a single arrow, and a little ways away, against the inner wall of the enclosure, th
e outline of a set of stairs not even the most jackassed of all fools would climb under these conditions.

  Now it’s the kid tugging on the tether, raring to go like this is some kind of game and the scaredy-cat loser will end up having to ride a girl’s bicycle.

  — FIFTY-EIGHT —

  Just after midnight, October 16, 1987

  “What . . . the . . . fuck . . . was . . . that?” Colin questions thoughts unrecognizable as his own. What just happened here? Was that a trance, a hallucination, a form of prayer? Has he fallen under a spell, has he gone hysterical with fear and worry? How long has he been huddled here on the floor of the office? Long enough to leave a puddle, he sees as he scrambles to his feet. And why is he in this particular room when there are so many other places he might better be?

  Maybe he came here to use the phone. He switches on the desk lamp and reaches for the instrument. Maybe he wanted to hear firsthand what they’re dealing with at the studio command center. No answer is forthcoming because the phone’s dead when he picks it up and no combination of numbers stabbed into its base brings it back to life.

  Cursing’s a waste of breath at this point and would only underscore how badly his voice is strained. That momentary intrusion of common sense encourages him to wonder if he came here for the keys to the barred door in the attic. Did he come here hoping they might have gone missing from their usual place—that they might have been nicked by the lad—that Anthony might at this very moment be violating one of the few rules he hasn’t already broken?

  The sheer ridiculousness of the premise makes Colin release a harsh bitter laugh made twice so by the condition of his throat. Towards what end would the lad venture to the roof in this kind of weather? To determine if he could fly? At his obstreperous daredevil worst, Anthony wouldn’t attempt anything that dangerous. And no amount of wishful thinking will change the boy’s disappearance into a simple matter of naughtiness. But that doesn’t keep Colin from pocketing the keys when they’re found in the usual place.

  In the master suite, dry clothes are laid out on the bed and a meal tray is prominent on the table near the fireplace, indicating Laurel is still looking out for him in her own way. The fight’s gone out of him by now and martyrdom to wet clothes and hunger has more than served its purpose, if there ever was one.

  After stripping down, he briefly contemplates the benefits of a hot shower before pulling on sweat pants and a thick jumper, but that smacks too much of indulgence. Under a salver dome on the meal tray, he finds a chicken sandwich and takes a few compliant bites before setting out again, this time for the attic.

  The noise takes some getting used to as he enters the stairwell. In addition to the banshee howl of the wind and the intermittent crash-bang of airborne objects hitting the house, something’s clanging up there like a broken-beat rendition of the Anvil Chorus. Once clear of the stairwell, he determines the sound is coming from the ramshackle exterior stairs, recently loosened from its upper moorings and freed from the grip of the overgrown wisteria.

  There’s no question of assessing the damage being wrought by the loosened stairs. The barred door to the platform connecting those stairs with the ladder to the roof is fairly respirating within its frame, visual testimony to the incredible forces at work on the other side.

  “Bleedin’ hell,” Colin rasps, backing away from the pulsing door and into a windowless alcove. In a night of heart-stopping revelations this is one of the worst. Saying Anthony has evaded capture—saying that he’s on his own out there somewhere—can he survive this natural fury? Can Jakeway? What’s to say Jakeway hasn’t already been taken out of the picture by nature run amok?

  That possibility produces another surge of wishful thinking and moves him to examine Anthony’s favorite hiding places. But he’s not kidding himself, his heart’s not really in it; he’s only going through the motions whilst he’s in and out of gables, deep within the eaves, and under and over unused furniture and a mountain of stored luggage.

  After that, it’s the massive fitted wardrobes lining an inside wall. He’s opening these cupboards one by one, searching with hands and eyes through rack after rack of warehoused clothing when he picks up on another rendition of the Anvil Chorus. It’s coming from overhead this time.

  — FIFTY-NINE —

  Early hours, October 16, 1987

  “With a wig . . . and a wag . . . and a . . . long . . . leather . . . bag.” Plastered tight against a stonework railing, Hoop gasps out the childhood tagline to the old uncle’s story, the only chant not called forth while clawing his way up the tight spiral of half-busted stairs leading to the roof of the mansion house. He ran out of the true native chants—the ones last spoken to Audrey’s spirit while it still lingered near her body—at the ribbed iron landing where no ease was found even though the platform held steady, unlike the stairs. And the ladder from there to the rooftop was firm-anchored too, but that didn’t make it any easier to climb. Not without a reliable set of words to distract from the terrible-bad case of wobbles he’d have had with or without the fierce wind that’s coming in stronger and stronger bursts.

  “With-a-wig-and-a-wag-and-a-long-leather-bag,” he quick spits out a repeat just to be on the safe side, then begins taking stock of the situation. A check of the sheath attached to his belt finds the knife still inside. The flashlight shoved up a sleeve for safekeeping is still there, but when he brings it out and tests it, it’s quit working. Probably because of the wet and all the banging around. He then does a squint-eyed search for the boy. Odds are good that the kid survived the climb once the tether was cut that would have pulled them both down had even one false step been taken.

  Drawn to the only thing that stands out in the near-blinding rain, he makes out a big structure that’s lit up from down below. From what he can tell, it’s mainly made of glass with a solid base and fancy trim like a dressed-up greenhouse. But it doesn’t stand high enough to be a regular greenhouse. And if this is what he saw glinting in the far distance the first time he got a look at the mansion house, it’s not high enough to be the sunroom he took it for.

  Could this be the fairytale coffin the kid jabbered about in the same breath as unicorns? Is this the way to sneak into the house? To find out—and to find out if the kid knew enough to go flat when he surfaced onto the wind-scoured rooftop—Hoop will have to get closer to this queer glass box and hope the kid’s waiting for him there.

  On his belly, much the way he went under the fence, he writhes across the open space separating him from the coffin thing. There’s nothing to hang on to, not even a vent pipe, and the only chimneys he can see in the dim glow are too far way to provide a handhold. His fingers are soon raw from digging into the asphalt-like roofing material and his knees have gone through his pants by the time he reaches the structure.

  Whatever the thing is intended for, it has slats along the base; moveable slats like the ones in the barn windows, except these are wider and attached to a chain device that regulates their opening and closing from down below.

  A ventilator. That’s what it is. Hoop curls his bloodied fingers around an ornamental iron corner post. It’s a combination skylight and vent for fresh air, with enough light showing through to see that the kid wasn’t blown away after all. There he is, on the other side of the chain mechanism, hanging on to the framework the same way Hoop is.

  With motions doing for words, the kid shows that at least three slats will have to be removed in order for someone Hoop’s size to squeeze through and winch down to the floor below. This raises all kinds of unasked questions about how strong the chain is, how far the drop is, and how to remove the slats without tools, let alone in a violent windstorm. Meanwhile there’s the constant worry about either losing the boy or making the mistake that allows the boy to escape and himself to fail.

  Before that can happen, Hoop unsheathes the knife for what good it might be against the heavy wooden slats. The kid quick scoots over, closes up the space between them.

  “No, not
that way!” he hollers like he did when Hoop was about to break the window. “This way,” the kid screeches and proceeds to show how the slats can be slid from their slots and unhooked from the chain attachment—like maybe he’s done it a time or two before.

  — SIXTY —

  Early hours of October 16, 1987

  At the conclusion of the reprised Anvil Chorus, a tremendous downdraft forces Colin to the back wall of the cupboard he’s pretending to search and slams the doors shut behind him. He stays put, face to the wall, listens for sounds of destruction that are sure to follow. Something’s undoubtedly struck and damaged the skylight; given an inroad, the raging storm’s bound to make quick work of the remains.

  But no distinctive shatterings and crashings follow. The only noise he isolates from a full orchestra of sounds is the unmistakable clank and grind of the chain that works the louvers of the skylight.

  Bloody hell. What’s that about? He turns, cracks a door open, cranes upwards at a sight that forces him into the depths of the wardrobe again.

  That can’t be. He cannot have seen the figure of a man lowering himself down the louver control chain. And he cannot have seen the figure of a boy descending by the same means. No, that was flashback to whatever pitiful state he was in whilst huddled on the office floor. It has to be because there’s no other rational explanation. He shuts his eyes even though he can’t see his hand in front of his face; he covers his ears against an auditory hallucination and remains that way till basic curiosity overpowers his defenses.